Throughout his many years of pastoral ministry, almost everything Eugene Peterson has done -- preaching, teaching, praying, counseling, writing -- has involved words. To keep himself attuned to the power of words and to help himself use language with precision and imagination, Peterson both reads and writes poetry.

Holy Luck presents, in one luminous volume, seventy poems by Peterson, most of them not previously published. Speaking to various aspects of “Kingdom of God” living, these poems are arranged in three sets:

Holy Luck -- poems arising out of the Beatitudes
The Rustling Grass -- poems opening up invisible Kingdom realities through particular created things
Smooth Stones -- occasional poems about discovering significance in every detail encountered while following Jesus


Echoing the language of Peterson’s popular Bible translation, The Message, the poems in Holy Luck are well suited for devotional purposes. An ideal gift item, this volume is one that readers will look to again and again.

• Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now
• Learning to Walk in the Dark
• Reading for Preaching: The Preacher in Conversation with Storytellers, Biographers, Poets, and Journalists
• Age of the Spirit, The: How the Ghost of an Ancient Controversy Is Shaping the Church
• Reality, Grief, Hope: Three Urgent Prophetic Tasks